


Of Pidge, Perception, and Prosecution

by ErinNovelist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Early Morning Interrogation, Keith Likes to Run Away, Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt Friendship, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, No One Knows Shhhh, Pidge is a little shit, Sassy Pidge | Katie Holt, Secret Relationship, except pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 13:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10278779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist
Summary: Of all the paladins, Lance knew Pidge was the one he had to watch out for.The only time her guard was down was after she woke up. She didn’t talk, glasses discarded after long hours staring at a screen, and she couldn’t function properly without her daily cup of coffee-equivalent alien juice.Which was why, when he wandered into the kitchen that morning, Lance hadn’t expected Pidge to zero in on him and ask, “When did you and Keith start fucking?”





	

If Lance was sure of one thing in his life, it was that Pidge was a little shit.

Despite the strong bond they’d developed during paladin training, and the near-death experiences that forced them to trust one another, Pidge was the only person he felt inclined to sleep with one eye open for. Her quick, silver tongue was like a dart, hitting the bullseye dead-center with every shot she took. (Not to say that her aim in general wasn’t as good, but her retorts had a sharp edge to them that her gun shots lacked. One made him snort at her attempts, and the other had him quaking in his boots). Her observation skills rivaled even Shiro’s, able to pick out weaknesses in the Galra’s strategy before the first wave was even upon them. If Allura and Shiro weren’t the best tag team strategists they had, Lance would’ve elected Pidge for the position a long time ago. It was absolutely _terrifying_ how good she was.

Of all the paladins, Pidge was the one he had to watch out for. 

The only time her guard was down was after she woke up. She ran on reserve power as she waited for her backup generator to kick start, glasses discarded after long hours staring at a screen, and she couldn’t function properly without her daily cup of coffee-equivalent alien juice.

Which was why, wandering into the kitchen with a cheerful greeting on the tip of his tongue, Lance hadn’t expected Pidge to zero in on him and ask, “When did you and Keith start fucking?”

To be fair, despite his intense morning routine to ensure that he was as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as possible, there was still a sluggish fog that hung over him until he’d been awake for at least an hour. Blinking blearily through the haze, Lance tried to make sense of what Pidge was saying because, for a second, it sounded as if she’d implied that he and Keith were— 

“Seriously, I could hear you two going at it all night,” she continued while Lance’s brain tried to reboot. “You know, I never pegged Keith as a screamer—”

“ _P-Pidge!”_ Lance cried out, running a hand through his dark hair, and glanced around the room because there had to be hidden cameras somewhere, anywhere. “We aren’t, Keith and I, we— _No!_ ”

“Did someone make breakfast?” Keith ambled through the doorway, covering his yawn with the back of his hand, and Lance’s heart sparked at the sight of him, like coal burning low in the fireplace. His hair was ruffled and puffed up in the back, fringe plastered to his forehead with sweat, and red lines covering his cheek from the square-pattern of Lance’s bedspread. “I thought I smelled omelets or something.”

“Nope,” Pidge said, leering at Lance over the rim of her cup. He half expected her to start speaking in a French accent and twirling the ends of her mustache. “Just the smell of Lance’s bullshit in the morning.”

Lance whipped around to face Pidge, waving a finger in her face. “No,” he told her, shaking his head, “We are _so_ not doing this.”

Pidge merely pulled a chair out for Keith and patted the seat for him to join her. “Oh, no, I think this is a conversation we all need to have.”

Keith cast a suspicious glare at the offered chair, eyes glowing eerily under the dim kitchen lighting. Pidge’s blinding smile didn’t help matter either. He pressed his lips into a thin, wary line and tried to gauge the situation from the panicked expression on Lance’s face, but despite the progress they’d made in the mind-melding exercises, Lance had yet to develop any telepathic powers. Neither had Keith, apparently. 

Perhaps it was time he asked Allura if there were any toxic vats of radioactive waste lying around in this galaxy. It was the quickest way he could think of gaining telepathy, and if jumping into radioactive waste didn’t work like the comics said it would, then drowning Pidge in one might just be the solution to everyone’s problems.

“Did you sleep well?” Pidge asked in a soft voice, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand.

And _damn,_ if she wasn’t a good actor because, on any other morning, Lance would’ve believed she was sincere and actually cared for her fellow paladins’ wellbeing. However, this was Pidge, and of all the truths Lance had learned in his life, she was still a little shit who shouldn’t be messed with.

Keith blinked slowly, as if he was actually considering his answer. “…Fine, I guess.” His eyes slid over to Lance who clenched his hands into white-knuckled fists, praying that Pidge would _drop it_. 

“It sounded like it,” Pidge whispered conspiratorially.

“What d’you mean?” Keith cocked his head to the side, looking soft and cute, and Lance wanted to clock him with Pidge’s bowl. There had to be a law against someone looking adorable and puppy-eyed at this time in the morning.

“I know you and Lance are sleeping together,” she whispered conspiratorially. 

“ _What?_!”

Keith flashed Lance a worried look, eyes widening in fear, because _holy fuck,_ there went three months of sneaking around, quick kisses in shadowed alcoves and fingers pressed over mouths in the early hours of the morning to muffle moans and groans of euphoria and pleasure. Lance shook his head frantically, pleading with Keith to deny it, because they couldn’t afford anyone knowing the secret they’d tried so desperately to keep hidden, unsure of how the rest of Team Voltron™ would react.

What if Shiro told them it was best for the team if they put their relationship on the backburner and forget it ever happened, because it’d mess with team dynamics and cause more harm than good? What if Allura told them that there was no “fraternization among paladins allowed” else they’d lose their status as pilots and defenders of the universe? There was so much at risk, so many cons to their pros, and when they had first began testing the waters of their rocky relationship, it was something that they took the time to address. What unforeseen risks would a romantic relationship have for Voltron?

They had managed to work past that part, Lance could happily note, but the deep fear was still ingrained at the forefront of their minds—always lurking, never fully resolved—no matter how hard they tried to deny it existed. It’s what pushed them to choose to hide their relationship from the rest of their team. There were just too many ways it could go _wrong_ for _everyone_.

…But, at the same time, it was going so _well_ for them. Keith and he were happy together, well and truly happy. Lance, for the life of him, couldn’t remember a time when he was this _happy_. He knew Keith felt the same way. The Red Paladin smiled so much more, laughed freely and gave so much. This relationship, while it could have negative side effects, was right. This relationship was _good_ for them.

“Well, where the hell did you get that idea?” Keith retorted hotly, a pink blush dusting the tips of his ears. Most might take it as anger bubbling up within him, but Lance knew the truth, the embarrassment and soft self-admonishment, which he’d triggered many, _many_ times by now. “It’s crazy, Pidge.” 

“But true,” Pidge added, “I heard it _all night long_.”

A flustered Keith sputtered, “W-We were just _sparring_ , working out some tension—” His voice rose a few octaves the more he spoke, and Pidge’s smile only grew wider.

“Why would you even think that I’d _sleep_ with _Keith_?” Lance interjected sharply.

“— _Hey!_ —”

“—no offense, samurai, but we’re rivals! Sleeping with your rival would be—”

“—the hottest angry sex on this side of the Milky Way,” Pidge chimed in.

Lance’s mouth dropped open, aghast as he gawked at the younger girl. “ _P-Pidge_!” he stammered out, a rush of warmth flushing his face. 

“Hey, I might’ve said it.” She leaned back in the chair, arms crossed against her chest, and peered over the rim of her glasses with a sharp smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. “But Keith thought it.”

Lance whirled around to face Keith who looked _very_ much uncomfortable in his chair right then and there. A heavy red streak was painted across his cheeks, eyes dark as he stared at his hands clasped together on the table in front of him, dark fringe spilling over his face as he tried to sink lower in his seat. Lance’s heart gave a sharp pang in his chest because _holy fuck yes_ was their angry sex the hottest thing ever—especially when Keith did the special thing with his tongue, and there was teeth, and tearing clothes and—

He met Keith’s gaze with a leering smile, but it only served to make Keith duck his head down further, unable to face Lance with Pidge in the room.

“Look, you two can get back to your Sexually-Frustrated Selves Working Out Some Tension™ or whatever in a bit,” Pidge said, “but there’s gonna be some ground rules.”

“We’ll keep it down,” Keith reaffirmed softly.

Lance shot him a sharp glare. “What happened to _keeping it a secret_?”

“She heard us, Lance, what’re we supposed to do?” Keith placed both his hands on the table. “Besides, we knew we couldn’t keep this relationship a secret forever—”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Now it was Pidge’s turn to be surprised. Her eyes flickered between the two of them, back and forth as if she was attending a tennis match, and her smile dropped slowly. “Who said anything about a relationship?”

“What did you think we were doing?” Keith snapped.

Pidge let out a god-forsaken giggle, and Lance nearly died on the spot. “Quiznak, I thought you two were just doing the do, I didn’t know it was serious!”

He could see the gears turning in her head. Perhaps it was time to talk to Shiro about Pidge’s blackmailing problem again and get her some help. Set up Blackmail Anonymous Meetings instead of Family Movie Nights™.

“Hey, Keith!” Shiro’s voice echoed through the kitchen like the bell tolling at the top of Lucifer’s covenant. The older paladin peered around the doorframe, a bright smile adorning his face. “You’re late for training, you still up for it?” 

Keith cast a frantic look between Pidge and Lance, already pushing himself to his feet and scampering after Shiro, leaving his poor boyfriend to diffuse the situation and swear Pidge to secrecy before all else went to hell. “I’m right behind you, Shiro!” He was out door before Lance could lodge a single protest.

 _That little fucker_ , Lance thought. _If I didn’t love him so much, he’d be sleeping in the rec room tonight._

There was silence at the table for a few ticks before Pidge scooted closer to Lance, head resting atop her folded hands. “So how’d that happen?”

Of all things Lance wanted to do right now, spilling the rest of their secrets to Pidge wasn’t exactly on the top of his agenda. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He was totally lying because he knew _exactly_ what Pidge meant, but he wasn’t in the mood to share. When he said that Keith’s and his relationship was good, he truly meant it, and while he held Pidge in the best regards, he couldn’t risk giving her any information that she might somehow use against them and ruin things.

“ _Lance_ ,” she drawled out, lips curling into a bitter frown. “I’ve heard you guys every night for the last few weeks. I know it’s been going on for a while, but I didn’t know it was serious.”

“So?” Lance asked, shrugging half-heartedly as he reached for a bowl and spork before heading towards the goo machines. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

“You can talk to me,” she said softly, eyes glinting under the bright kitchen lights. Her smile had been wiped away, only a lingering frown suspended on her face. She was serious, he realized, she _actually_ wanted to know. “You guys went through all the trouble of hiding this, so there must be a reason.”

“We’ve got something good,” he said, pulling the switch as green goo trickled out in a spiral into his bowl, his plethora of thoughts lost in the soft whir of the food dispenser, and wished with all his heart that he wasn’t making a mistake. “We aren’t ready to share it, I guess.”

“But why?” she asked. “Unless Allura is harboring a secret crush for you, which isn’t likely, considering she’s way out of your league, and has a massive infatuation for a certain Black Paladin, no one would try to mess with it.”

…And that was the very crux of the matter, why Keith was so afraid, and why Lance wanted to tell everyone so badly. You’d think their team would be happy, Lance thought, to hear that he and Keith were getting along and strengthening their bond with each other, albeit a more intimate way than Allura had originally suggested. But Keith had reservations about it all—because it was as much of a threat to the team as it was a strength. Even if there wasn’t another person who had any objections to their relationship, there were certainly other reasons to protest, and if he were to lose something as precious as whatever _this_ was between them… Lance didn’t know what he’d do.

“We’re just not ready,” was all he could offer Pidge in response.

Expecting her to bombard him with questions and defiance at his words, Lance was pleasantly surprised when she only nodded in agreement. “I get it,” she said, staring up at him from behind thick lashes as he settled back in his chair with his breakfast. 

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone.”

"Well, for a certain price-"

"Pidge," he snapped with a resolute expression. "Please, can't you-"

“Don’t worry. I won’t.” She chewed on her bottom lip, pondering her next words carefully. “Hey, Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“For what it’s worth… I’m happy for you guys. You’re good together.”

Lance smiled around a spoonful of goo. “Thanks, Pidge,” he said with his mouth full. “You’re a good kid.”

“Also, if you break Keith’s heart, I’m gonna break both your legs.” Her teeth shone under the kitchen lights, an eerie glow to them, and Lance gulped.

“Understood,” he said, frowning as he took another cautious bite of goo. Of all people he’d expected to get the Big Brother Talk™ from (Shiro), Pidge hadn’t even been considered for the list.

Her eyes suddenly turned steely and a smug grin began to brew. “Now that that’s settled. Let’s talk about something called volume control.”

Lance groaned and dropped his head in his palms as Pidge began to chatter on about ground rules and blackmail, waiting for Keith and Shiro to get back from their training session, and for the rest of the team to join them for breakfast, knowing it would halt Pidge’s single-minded drive. It’s not what he expected from her, and in a way, he was glad. Pidge always surprised him, and he needed something like that in his life.

Reaching out, he ruffled her unruly mop of curls, a low chuckle falling between them at her indignant squawk. Perhaps not the way he’d expected his morning to go or how his secret would be revealed, but he’d take it any day. A little bit more happiness in the tremulous world would do anyone good, after all.

Now, how to talk to Shiro about Pidge's Blackmailing Problem.


End file.
